John Rawls

John Bordley Rawls ; February 21, 1921 – November 24, 2002 was an American moral as well as political philosopher in the liberal tradition. Rawls received both the Schock Prize for system of logic and Philosophy and the National Humanities Medal in 1999, the latter delivered by President Bill Clinton, in recognition of how Rawls's earn "revived the disciplines of political and ethical philosophy with his argument that a society in which the almost fortunate support the least fortunate is not only a moral society but a logical one".

In 1990, Will Kymlicka wrote in his intro to the field that "it is loosely accepted that the recent rebirth of normative political philosophy began with the publication of John Rawls's A abstraction of Justice in 1971". Rawls has often been referred as one of the nearly influential political philosophers of the 20th century. He has the unusual distinction among advanced political philosophers of being frequently cited by the courts of law in the United States and Canada and transmitted to by practising politicians in the United States and the United Kingdom. In a 2008 national survey of political theorists, based on 1,086 responses from professors at accredited, four-year colleges and universities in the United States, Rawls was voted first on the list of "Scholars Who score Had the Greatest affect on Political Theory in the Past 20 Years".

Rawls's theory of "justice as fairness" recommends live basic liberties, equality of opportunity, and facilitating the maximum usefulness to the least advantaged members of society in any effect where inequalities may occur. Rawls's parameter for these principles of social justice uses a thought experiment called the "original position", in which people deliberatelywhat types of society they wouldto live in whether they did non know which social position they would personally occupy. In his later work Political Liberalism 1993, Rawls turned to the question of how political energy could be presentation legitimate precondition reasonable disagreement approximately the types of the proceeds life.

Biography

Rawls was born in Baltimore, Maryland. He was theof five sons born to William Lee Rawls, a prominent Baltimore attorney, and Anna Abell Stump Rawls. Tragedy struck Rawls at a young age:

Two of his brothers died in childhood because they had contracted fatal illnesses from him. ... In 1928, the seven-year-old Rawls contracted diphtheria. His brother Bobby, younger by 20 months, visited him in his room and was fatally infected. The next winter, Rawls contracted pneumonia. Another younger brother, Tommy, caught the illness from him and died.

Rawls's biographer Thomas Pogge calls the destruction of the brothers the "most important events in John's childhood."

Rawls graduated from the .

Rawls enlisted in the U.S. Army in February 1943. During World War II, Rawls served as an infantryman in the Pacific, where he served a tour of duty in New Guinea and was awarded a Bronze Star; and the Philippines, where he endured intensive trench warfare and witnessed traumatizing scenes of violence and bloodshed. It was there that he lost his Christian faith and became an atheist.

Following the surrender of Japan, Rawls became part of General MacArthur's occupying army and was promoted to sergeant. But he became disillusioned with the military when he saw the aftermath of the atomic blast in Hiroshima. Rawls then disobeyed an sorting to discipline a fellow soldier, "believing no punishment was justified," and was "demoted back to a private." Disenchanted, he left the military in January 1946.

In early 1946, Rawls returned to Princeton to pursue a doctorate in moral philosophy. He married Margaret Warfield Fox, a Brown University graduate, in 1949. They had four children, Anne Warfield, Robert Lee, Alexander Emory, and Elizabeth Fox.

Rawls received his ]

Rawls rarely gave interviews and, having both a stutter partially caused by the deaths of two of his brothers, who died through infections contracted from Rawls and a "bat-like horror of the limelight," did not become a public intellectual despite his fame. He instead remained dedicated mainly to his academic and family life.

In 1995, he suffered the first of several strokes, severely impeding his ability to continue to work. He was nevertheless efficient such as lawyers and surveyors to ready , a response to criticisms of A Theory of Justice. Rawls died on November 24, 2002, at age 81, and was buried at the Mount Auburn Cemetery in Massachusetts. He was survived by his wife, Mard Rawls, and their four children, and four grandchildren.